Academic Leadership

Chapter 11 – Innovator

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Developing the Innovator

When using the Innovator role, as an academic

leader, you will see the need for new courses and

delivery approaches.

When using your Innovator role you will be:

• Seeing changes that are needed.


• Managing change.


• Thinking creatively.


• Using change management skills.


• Being innovative.


• Creative.


• Accepting of change.

When you overuse or inappropriately use your Innovator role you will be:

• Changing for change sake.


• Responding prematurely.

As with other roles you may need to:

• Develop the role:
  
  
  • critically review your own behaviour and its impact in different contexts over a
    period of time;
  
  
  • develop strategies to assist you in becoming better at reading the external
    environment;
  
  
  • find ways to better utilise the knowledge you have gained from previous
    experiences as an academic leader in new contexts.
  
  
  
  


• Refocus the role:
  
  
  • pay more attention to it, recognising the importance of selecting the most
    appropriate operational role for each new situation.
  
  
  
  


• Reflect on the role:
  
  
  • given the feedback you have received from others and what you know of
    yourself, consider how you could more effectively select the most appropriate
    operational role in different situations.
  
  
  
  

We have identified some activities you might like to consider to assist you in this task.
There are also some readings listed below that you may find useful. They are available
through our web page http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/academicleadership
(Look for “Resources for Workshop Participants” on the left hand corner of the
webpage.)